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Baked penne with sausage and creamy ricotta

Since my co-worker took the day off today, I needed a menu that was simple enough for one person to prepare for 50 people, in 4 hours. Pasta is always an option so I chose to make baked penne with sausage and creamy ricotta.

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

As usual, I made some changes to this recipe. I always have onion in sauce for pasta so I added one onion, chopped. I also wanted to lighten the sauce a bit since it is all sausage, so I added 1 zucchini, cut into moon-shape. You can add vegetables of your choice if you like, such as mushrooms or bell peppers.

Most of the times, sausage is sold in casings. To remove the casings, simply cut a slit down the sausage. Using your hands, carefully peel the outer layer off the meat. Discard the casing.

I wanted the chunkiness of tomatoes in this sauce so I added one 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes in addition to the tomato puree and decreased the amount of water by half (add 3/4 cup of water instead of 1 1/2 cups). As the sauce cooks, the liquid from the crushed tomatoes helps thin out the tomato puree. Adjust the amount of water as it cooks. You also want to be careful with the seasoning for this sauce. Since sausage is already seasoned and can be quite salty, you won’t need that much salt. You can always fix under-seasoned sauce, but you can’t fix over-salted sauce. Make sure to skim the fat in your sauce. As it cooks, the fat from the sausage is released. Skim the pools of oil on top of the sauce.

When you are cooking your pasta, cook just until al dente. You want some firmness to the pasta since it will continue to cook in the oven. The purpose of adding the olive oil to the cooked pasta is to prevent it from sticking to one another. If you cook the pasta ahead of time, make sure to drizzle the oil with the noodles. When the sauce is ready, add 1 cup to the penne and toss together. Pour into the baking dish and top with more sauce and the ricotta. This recipe called for creamy ricotta, which was referring to Food and Wine’s ricotta recipe. I cheated a little today and used already made ricotta, but by all means make fresh if you so desire!

Although I love fresh mozzarella, I used shredded today and sprinkled a little on the top of the penne.

The recipe says to bake for 45 minutes, but I would check your pasta after 30 minutes to see the progress. My pasta came out a bit dark on top but once you dig your spoon in, it was still moist and soft in the middle. Overall, a simple but great dish. How can you go wrong with sausage and ricotta pasta? You can always bake this dish ahead of time and just reheat it before serving.